


5 Fae Things Jaskier Does

by Beginte



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: 5 Things, Again, Established Relationship, Fae Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt is completely gone on his common law husband and he's fine with it, Geralt milks a cow as part of his love language, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Loves Jaskier | Dandelion, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Immortal Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion Loves Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, M/M, Slice of Life, happy besotted husbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:33:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27311227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beginte/pseuds/Beginte
Summary: This doesn't necessarily have to be a fae thing, but right now, at arse o'clock at night and with a bucket in hand, Geralt is absolutely determined to think that it is.Or: Jaskier is part-fae and Geralt is entirely in love.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 70
Kudos: 893





	5 Fae Things Jaskier Does

There are mornings when Geralt wakes with Jaskier drooling on him or snuffling in his arms, and it dawns on him again that he gets to keep this forever. Or, strictly speaking, as close to forever as a witcher and a part-fae can get – which is close, with a bit of luck. And Geralt does feel perturbingly lucky, lately. It’s almost horrifying.

Mornings like these make Geralt grin into the sky, quiet and still, so Jaskier doesn’t wake and catch him at it. It’s a heady thought, more potent than any booze or even Lambert’s abominable White Gull and, much like that drink, it should be handled in small doses and without compromising witnesses.

Jaskier is part-fae. He’ll stay by Geralt’s side century after century, millennium after millennium. He’ll keep following Geralt on hunts and hiding in trees and getting in the way and bitching when he's hungry or his feet hurt and smiling and laughing and singing when it’s just the two of them by a campfire under an endless starry night.

Geralt brushes a stray lock of brown hair into place; Jaskier’s nose twitches and he rubs his cheek over Geralt’s chest.

“Hmmhh Valdo... gonna stab Valdo...”

Geralt snorts and tilts his head sideways to share a look with Roach. She huffs at him and moves to finish eating a patch of fairly rare herbs he uses for potions.

“Stab him in the neck...”

It feels like Geralt shouldn’t have missed it, on account of being a witcher and all, but he did. He absolutely fucking did. For years he travelled with a part-fae, shared food and bath and bed, and then love, with a part-fae, and had no clue. It hardly feels fair though; Jaskier smells human, he smells like Roach and wildflowers and Geralt. He has absolutely no magic to speak of (Triss and Yennefer both checked him thoroughly). He can lie, and he exercises that ability often and with gusto. He doesn’t have pointy ears. Not to mention, Jaskier himself didn’t have a clue about his heritage either until they made the discovery.

(Well. Strictly speaking, Yennefer made the discovery. Which she’ll never let them forget, since she’ll probably be around for as long as the two of them.)

But now that he knows, there are things Geralt notices. Small, innocent things that are either amusing or endearing once one realises they stem from that trickle of fae blood singing along in Jaskier’s veins. It becomes something of a hobby for Geralt to collect them.

* * *

**_1\. Plaiting hair_ **

It’s summer, it’s very hot, and Geralt is wearing a bow in his hair. Which is fine. If anyone has a problem with it, they can fuck right off.

At least, that’s what he tells himself as the village looms closer along the dusty path.

"I hope it's a wyvern!" announces Ciri, a wild glint in her eye. "Or a fiend!"

"Then you won't see it," grunts Geralt. "You'll be staying with Jaskier."

"But—"

"Someone has to keep him safe while I hunt, Ciri."

"Now, _hang on!"_ pipes up Jaskier, and Geralt doesn't bother to hide the twitch of his lips.

Ciri is with them for a while this summer, due to be picked up by Yennefer in a few weeks' time. She's fifteen now and eager to gain hands-on experience, so Geralt and Jaskier take her along; they keep to villages small and northern enough to be safe from Nilfgaard's reach, and Geralt only brings Ciri with him for contracts like ghouls and drowners, which are so easy Jaskier could do them at this point.

She's a feral creature, his Child Surprise. (His _child_.) Any grandchild of Calanthe's was bound to be, but Ciri is truly something special. Her kind heart is only matched by her hot temper and pig-headedness. She's determined to forge her own life and to make Geralt proud – the latter Geralt doesn't know what to do with.

Now that she's settled into herself, the life on the Path seems to suit her and she takes to it with eagerness and a firmly set chin. Her freckles have come out in the sun, her hair gone whiter than Geralt's, and lately she's been insisting on lining her eyes with enough dark kohl to look like a fierce Skelliger on a warpath.

In keeping with that, earlier this morning Jaskier pulled her hair back and framed it with four ferocious plaits that truly make her look ready for battle, and then tied them off with a bow, which really should look odd, and indeed it does a bit. But that's Ciri – his odd little creature. Their creature.

Faes famously love plaiting and weaving hair. Jaskier, it seems, is no exception. He loves combing Geralt’s hair, plaiting it either in a simple imitation of the way Geralt usually ties it, or constructing landscapes of varying intricacy. He cleans it, plaits it, pulls it back, weaves it diagonally aside, gathers it into a bun, puts flowers into it when the season allows. He trills, hums, tells Geralt how pretty he looks, or just goes about the task in companionable silence.

And Geralt sits there and likes it. The plaits are... interesting, and on occasion he feels a strange flutter of mild pleasure when he catches his reflection while sporting one of Jaskier’s simpler designs.

And now he’s wearing a bow in his hair.

It matches Ciri’s, made of the same lace-trimmed fabric in the green-blue colour of the sea, although Ciri’s is much bigger and more resplendent. Geralt’s is smaller and relegated to the back of his head. It’s still unmistakeably a bow though. But Jaskier kissed his nose and whispered that he looked lovely, and Ciri grinned happily, and Geralt once again felt that odd, pleased flutter in his chest.

They get looks when they enter the village. A witcher always stirs attention (though thanks to Jaskier, it now seldom involves rocks and pitchforks); a witcher with a colourful companion even more so, especially since Jaskier's fame has spread far and wide. And a witcher with the famous bard Jaskier _and_ a child in tow is definitely something to come and gawk at.

(Ciri bristles at the word 'child', but Geralt steadfastly keeps using it. If only because she _is_ , and because lately she's been copying Jaskier's way of pouting.)

Two young girls and a boy come up, intrigued, and talk about Ciri's hair, which she seems to like, and which Jaskier beams at with authorial pride.

"Wait here," Geralt tells them, eager to escape to the tavern and ask about the contract before the children turn their attention on him. The bow feels like it's tingling on the back of his head.

Jaskier gives him a knowing look as he flees, but Geralt pretends not to notice, and ducks into the tavern. As he goes, a few more people trickle Jaskier and Ciri's way.

Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes he's gone, discussing the problem with the kindly alderman (it sounds like a leshen – Ciri will be disappointed to sit this one out, but frankly, Geralt is relieved, because it means Jaskier will fiercely stay put to guard her, and thus keep himself out of danger as well), and he blinks, dazed, when he steps back out into the sunlight, and he stops dead by the pole the villagers have raised in the square in preparation for summer solstice festivities.

Jaskier, Ciri and Roach are where he'd left them, but that's all that feels normal.

There's a queue of about a dozen people of varying ages, all lined up and chatting while, at the head of it, Jaskier sits in the dirt and talks merrily as he plaits a young boy's hair, pausing every now and then to ask for any special requests. The other people watch and wait their turn, admiring the two kids Jaskier has already worked on, while Ciri plays the lute to entertain them.

She's playing the simplest melody in Jaskier’s repertoire; she’s terrifically bad at the lute but nonetheless determined to do it, and it’s the only song she can play half-decently. Geralt still winces when she plucks the wrong string and butchers the passage.

Ciri sticks her tongue out a little and keeps on playing. Geralt is so fucking proud of her he needs to lean on the festivities pole, because his heart might give out at any minute. She really is bad at this, and yet she keeps ploughing on. Keeps _enjoying_ it. And Jaskier keeps teaching her laughing with her, beaming when she gets things right. They get along so well that Geralt sometimes can hardly breathe, because what the fuck has _he_ ever done in his life to deserve this?

"There we go!" Jaskier ties his handiwork off with a buttercup. "Now, who's next!"

A mature woman with a long, simple plait of greying hair steps up and Jaskier coos as he undoes the weaves; Ciri stops her playing to loudly admire the lustre and length, and the woman laughs. Ciri selects more buttercups for Jaskier, and goes back to her playing, Jaskier's treasured lute deposited so trustingly in her still-inexperienced hands.

Geralt stands there, leaning against the pole, watching the two of them. The sun is warming his face; the bow sits in his hair, tied with care; people mill about him, watching Jaskier plait while Ciri plays; nobody pays him any mind, except to nod politely or give thanks for taking on the contract.

The sun is shining, the summer solstice is coming, and Geralt watches Jaskier and Ciri and feels grateful that summer days are so long. It means he can stay here and watch just a little bit longer.

* * *

**_2\. Milk_ **

This doesn't necessarily have to be a fae thing, but right now, at arse o'clock at night and with a bucket in hand, Geralt is absolutely determined to think that it is.

Jaskier likes milk. Dairy in general, but milk and cream especially. He can happily eat porridge for breakfast every day for months on end and always lick the bowl clean. (Literally.) In sharp contrast, having stew or fish or anything else more than three days in a row makes him turn up his nose and season the meal with bitter commentary. (He'll always eat everything though.) He relishes cool drinks made of mixed fruit and milk in the heat of summer, he beelines towards any yoghurts or kefirs on offer at banquets, and there have been several incidents with whipped cream that have almost earned Geralt the distinction of being the first witcher to die of heart failure.

(These incidents still happen. It's just that now Geralt has learned to be proactive about them, that is to haul Jaskier into the nearest available bedding and have his way with him. Much better for the arteries.)

Another thing Jaskier likes is a mug of hot milk before bed, especially when summer ends and autumn abruptly chills the nights. He closes his eyes, hums happily, takes his time, and licks the white moustache off his upper lip. It's... offensively endearing. Geralt can never keep himself from watching him at it, and it spreads a warm feeling in his stomach, like he's the one drinking the damn milk.

Which is how Geralt finds himself traipsing through the dark, holding a bucket.

They were delayed on their way to the village, and by the time they arrive it's late and everyone is asleep. The innkeeper rouses when they knock on the door; holding up a candle, she recognises Geralt from when he cleared out the village's ghoul infestation last year, and she ushers them in, going as far as to offer some bread and butter for them to take to their room. When Jaskier asks after a mug of milk though, she regrets to inform them they'll have to wait until morning, when the girl milks the inn's dairy cow.

"Ah," says Jaskier, his face dimming in a way that makes Geralt want to break something. "All right, I suppose I'll wait. Thank you, kind madam."

And the thing is, Jaskier is not having a good day. Which, by extension, means Geralt isn't having one either, but in a different way than usually.

A string of misfortunes, starting with falling into a cold swamp first thing in the morning (he fell arse-first and was dunked head and all, but he managed to keep his lute up and dry, because that's the sort of priorities Jaskier has) and ending with snagging his favourite doublet on a nail sticking out of the fence mere minutes ago as they entered the village in the dark. It's like something out of one of his funnier songs. Geralt pointed that out around the afternoon to try and lighten the mood, but Jaskier failed to see the humour. Or the irony.

(Geralt loves Jaskier, he does. A lot, in fact. But when Jaskier is annoyed rather than truly upset, his winging is enough to make a piece of rock grow independent will just to roll away.)

But now Jaskier forlornly chews his sizeable piece of buttered bread, sitting huddled in on himself on the bed and looking as pathetic as only a poetic soul can manage, and Geralt feels a grim sense of foreboding when he sees a bucket next to the washbasin.

Jaskier sighs, also looking at the bucket. Chews slowly. Picks at a loose thread in the sheet. Takes another bite, still looking at the bucket.

Geralt's own piece of bread sticks in his throat. Fuck no. He's not doing this.

Jaskier sighs again, somehow manages to make the action of swallowing look sad and small, and lifts those blue eyes at Geralt.

"Ah, fuck," says Geralt, grabs the bucket, and storms out of the room to milk a stranger's cow.

The cow is awake, which facilitates the process considerably. He doesn't take much, just a few pulls, enough to fill a mug, thanks the cow for her service, and heads back to the inn and their room.

When he opens the door, he finds Jaskier crouching in front of the hearth, starting a fire; he's pulled his boots off, his doublet is neatly folded by the bed. He's thrown a blanket over himself for warmth, and under it he's wearing Geralt's spare shirt.

Geralt refuses to be endeared. Jaskier has just made him go milk a cow in the middle of the gods-damn night.

Jaskier looks up at him and _smiles_ , soft and quietly happy. Geralt's heart wants him to run out and milk all the cows in the area. That's not practical, so he carefully puts that urge down and tries to remember to glare as he hooks the bucket over the fire.

Jaskier's arms wind around him, his scent mingled with Geralt's own permeating the shirt.

"Thank you..." Jaskier murmurs, pressing a kiss to Geralt's cheek.

Geralt refuses to let him off that easily.

"Hmm."

He casts a quick Igni to strengthen the fire and gently bring the milk to a near boil, and then, with the most thunderous silence he has in his repertoire, he spends ten minutes continuously pouring the milk from one fucking mug to another to cool it off.

"Here," he grunts, shoving the mug in Jaskier's hands.

Jaskier deliberately makes their fingers brush.

"You are a darling and I love you," he coos.

Geralt turns on his heel, but it definitely has nothing to do with the heat bursting all over his face. It's the brisk autumn night and the fire, is all.

Behind him, Jaskier sniffs the milk and makes a soft, soft sound. So Geralt drops onto the bed, takes off his boots because he's fucking earned it, and settles in to watch.

* * *

**_3\. Iron_ **

Part-fae or not, Jaskier is still as soft and breakable as any human; his fae lifespan will carry him through centuries and millennia only if he doesn't do anything stupid, like tread on a cockatrice or annoy a man with a very large axe. (Both of which Jaskier has actually done, but Geralt had been there to prevent certain death.)

The fae blood seems to give Jaskier the upper hand when it comes to common illnesses. In all the time Geralt has known him, Jaskier has never so much as caught a cold, let alone a plague, and considering the truly staggering amounts of fucking he's done up and down the Continent, it finally explains why he's never picked up any venereal disease.

(In hindsight, that alone should have been a massive clue.)

It does, however, come with one downside, and that is sensitivity to iron. All humans have iron in their blood, and Jaskier's distinct lack of spontaneous combustion, as well as his ability to handle iron objects, suggests he's nowhere near as sensitive as a full fae. But when he was cut with a blade made of pure iron, the wound healed sluggishly and scarred deeply.

He does still get hangovers and indigestions, so when Jaskier wakes up, rolls over, and throws up over the side of the bed after a night of town festivities, Geralt just tells him to aim better and try not to eat six steak pies in a row next time.

"Fuck you..." Jaskier mumbles.

Geralt is about to remind him that they did precisely that last night, but Jaskier groans again and this time manages to vomit in a bucket. He spits and flops back onto the bed with a groan.

"What the fuck did I eat?"

"Everything," Geralt supplies. "Some of it was bound to disagree with each other."

"Urgh. These people make sinfully good pretzels though," Jaskier pants slightly as he burrows under the covers. "Worth it."

"Hmm."

He feels warm, Geralt registers lying beside him. A little warmer than normal. He refuses to get up, which isn't unusual, but when Geralt comes back from downstairs with two bowls of porridge for their breakfast and Jaskier refuses, a cold thorn pokes in Geralt's stomach.

When he peers into the bucket Jaskier has vomited in and sees a trace of red, his blood runs cold.

"Jaski—"

"Geralt," Jaskier mumbles, voice rough and eyes glassy. "I... I don't feel very well."

"I know," says Geralt, his body trained into calm as he sets down the porridge. "What do you feel?"

Jaskier swallows, blinks slowly. There's a pinched frown between his eyebrows, the kind that appears only when he's in pain.

"My stomach hurts," he mumbles. "And it's all... fuzzy. And I... it feels like there's something wrong with my blood."

Right, Jaskier might be poetic, but this also might be precious information. Geralt tucks it away and wedges his arms under Jaskier's back to lift him out of bed.

"We're going to a healer," he tells him, rough, every single nerve in his body strung tight. "Now."

Because Jaskier _doesn't get sick_.

When dawn breaks on the next day, it finds Geralt perched by Jaskier's bedside in the healer's rooms. Jaskier is right there, his hand warm (too warm, much too warm) in Geralt's, but he may as well be halfway across the Continent. He's flushed, his hair damp with sweat, fever rippling over his skin, labouring his breaths.

His eyelashes flutter, but his eyes never open.

Geralt keeps looking at him, because if he doesn't, he feels horrifyingly alone – and when the fuck did _being_ _alone_ become a terror that haunts him in the night?

(He knows when. Of course he does.)

The healer's diagnosis had been quick: iron poisoning, premeditated and achieved through soaking rusty iron in water, reducing it over a low flame, and soaking again, repeating the process over and over until what's left is a spoonful of poison for anyone harmed by iron.

Geralt had gripped the edge of the table.

"Can you fix it?"

"Aye," she had said. "And I've done it twice before. He'll be fine, but I'll need to put him into a sleep to deal with the poison. And then he'll need to rest. He'll have a fever. Could be two days, maybe longer. But he'll come through, that much I can tell you. He's a strong one. And he wants to live."

Geralt clings to those words now. He'd clung to them as he massaged Jaskier's throat to get him to swallow the healer's potions, he'd clung to them when he carried Jaskier to the healer's recovery bed, when he slowly, carefully removed Jaskier's boots, undressed him down to his chemise and smallclothes now soaked in sweat.

Jaskier shivers, one shoulder jolting in a feverish spasm. Geralt rumbles a useless sound, because it's all he can do. All he can do is sit here and _wait_.

He wants to break every single piece of furniture in the room. He wants to hunt down the assassin, squeeze their employer's name from their throat with his fist, and then... and _then_...

Jaskier huffs a breath; when he swallows, it looks painful. More sweat beads on his forehead. The rage and fight leave Geralt, and for a moment he misses them, because they at least kept him company. All that's left now is the hollow of his own uselessness.

All that's left is Jaskier's misery.

If Jaskier has never been sick, this must be terrible for him. It's no match for food poisoning or a hangover, and it might be the very first time Jaskier has had a fever. Curses, yes, Jaskier has a worrying talent for attracting them, but this is something different altogether. Curses are violent and blinding, and they sometimes linger in nightmares, but the mind pushes out most memories of them. This... this is prolonged and painful and _new_.

Geralt may not have ever been sick either (and if he was once, when he was a child, he no longer remembers how it felt or if his mother cared for him), but he's well familiar with the toxicity of potions crawling through his blood. How they make his tongue bitter, his palate dry, and his skin tight with fever. How each touch is abhorrent, how the air is too cold but his body too hot.

Jaskier shivers, his breathing uneven, cheeks flushed in ugly blotches; his lips are red and chapped, and Geralt tries to be gentle, wishes for his hand to be less calloused and coarse as he pushes the sweat-damp hair off his forehead.

He'll be fine, he tells himself. He'll be fine. The healer said so. The healer has _done it_ before. He just needs time to recover. For his inflamed body to set itself to rights again, now that most of the poison has been cleared out.

Geralt still feels fucking miserable.

"Jaskier," he whispers softly for comfort, and doesn't know what more to say after that. "Jaskier," he whispers pathetically again, close enough to almost rest his forehead against Jaskier's.

He doesn't. He can feel the fever radiating off it, burning up the scant inch of space between them. Jaskier's breath hitches and he snuffles, almost like he does in the mornings in Geralt's arms, but there's unhappiness in it, and Geralt shuts his eyes tight.

Swallowing feels like pushing a bunch of nails down his throat.

Gods, he's fucking useless. He's known Jaskier for well over two decades, loved him for near as long. He should be able to say something, offer words to Jaskier who always knows what to say. Sometimes it's something Geralt doesn't want to hear, but it's always right.

"You— hm."

Geralt tails off; his voice sounds loud in the empty room, and he feels foolish, because Jaskier is miles away. He may as well be speaking to him during one of their winters apart in the past.

No. Fuck that. He hates that idea. Jaskier is _right here_. And he'll be awake within days.

"I love you," Geralt grunts at him.

He's told him quite a few times already, but where Jaskier's own love declarations are warm, easy and frequent, Geralt somehow always manages to drop his at Jaskier's feet like a lumpy potato. And Jaskier always looks at him like he'd just hung the moon, because he's inexplicable like that.

So when Jaskier wakes up two days later, Geralt tells him again.

"Mmm, good morning," rasps Jaskier in a voice sticky with disuse, cheeks flushed but eyes clear with health and life. There's a bit of snot wetting his nose.

"It's the afternoon," Geralt tells him, feeling completely besotted, and passes him a glass of water. "And I love you."

And Jaskier smiles at him again.

* * *

**_4\. Shiny things_ **

Jaskier does love his baubles. He coos over any and all ornamentation, spends ridiculous amounts of time and money at a tailor's, wastes time lingering at jewellers' stalls, covets famous jewels and gemstones. A whisper of a treasure map makes his eyes gleam and optimistically invest in a shovel. He goes through rings and earrings at a dizzying pace, and he would hoard them if Roach allowed.

All of which makes Geralt confront a disturbing fact.

He wants to _give Jaskier things_. Things he'd like. Not just practical things. (That's the disturbing part.) He'd given Jaskier a finely decorated and lethally serviceable dagger on his twenty-fifth birthday (more than two decades ago now), and thus used up his repertoire. Sometimes, when they have coin, he'll grumble and buy Jaskier the latest ring he likes.

But there is one thing that Geralt can give Jaskier, which nobody else – no other friend or lover or companion – has ever given him. A shiny, glittering thing. The vastest jewel in the world.

The sea.

They go to the Coast every year now, just the two of them, to spend a few weeks there towards the end of summer, when the shores and beaches stretch empty for miles. They take a cottage a good half-hour's walk away from a fishing village, and they spend their days in the water and on the sand, Roach trotting through the waves.

Geralt hums, the peace of solitude settling something vaguely possessive in his bones. The sea and isolation mellow him so far, in fact, that he doesn't even have a fit when the wind blows their blanket away for the third time in one day.

The sky is vast and blue, but around the sun an invisible layer of cloud mists into white, taking the edge off the burn. The summer is dipping towards an end; the sun hangs lower, the wind runs cooler, and the afternoons are filled with sharp, eye-squinting light.

Jaskier is happy, bronzed and glittering with seawater, sand sticking to his skin, hair tousling in the wind as he tilts his head back towards the sun, and it always makes Geralt leisurely horny, intent on savouring every idle moment, on pressing kisses to Jaskier's temples, on making love to him long enough and slow enough, or repeatedly enough, for the sun to move across the sky.

They stand in the waves, just deep enough to feel a little buoyant as the water laps over their hips; the sea sparks and glitters into the horizon, and there's nowhere they need to be, today or tomorrow or the week after, so Geralt holds Jaskier close and takes his time kissing him. There is nobody to see them, nobody to witness how soft a witcher can be when he holds love in his arms, so Geralt is slow and lazy, much to Jaskier's delight. He drags out the kisses, nuzzles at Jaskier's cheek, ducks to scrape his teeth over Jaskier's shoulder, licks the brine off his jawline.

"I want you," he rumbles softly, languidly, because there's plenty of time for all that.

"Hmm, that's wonderfully opportune of you, my dear," says Jaskier, fingers digging into the flesh of Geralt's back. "Because I happen to be in the mood myself."

Jaskier is always irresistible, but something about the windswept freedom of the Coast makes him intoxicating.

A tall wave washes over them, and Geralt steadies him through it, holds him firm and close, hears his giddy breath in his ear. His blood warms. Jaskier drags a finger through the seawater droplets glimmering on Geralt's skin, and then lifts it to his mouth to taste. Geralt groans, deep and needy and completely unashamed.

They make their way out of the water and towards their (yet again) rumpled blanket, stumbling and uncoordinated as they grope each other and laugh like idiots, horny and naked and with seawater-slick flesh pebbling under the cooler gusts of wind.

Jaskier laughs when Geralt tumbles him onto the blanket.

"Oh, shall I swoon at this rugged display of strength?"

"Hmm..."

Jaskier is beautiful, and he knows it. He reclines on the sandy blanket, body loose and at ease, glittering with seawater, one leg bent at the knee and swaying tantalisingly from side to side. He's a banquet or a treasure – Geralt can't decide, and, more importantly, realises he doesn't care, because either way he gets to enjoy him.

So he wastes no more time, nudging himself between Jaskier's legs where they spread to invite him, rubs a thumb of one hand over that knee while he slowly pushes his other hand up and down Jaskier's side while blue eyes watch him with eagerness and trust.

"I like it when you look at me like that," says Jaskier with a grin.

"Oh? Like what?" asks Geralt while trying to decide what to do first, because the options are numerous and equally appealing.

Jaskier stretches, angles his body a little, a slow, knowing smile on his lips.

"Like you're making plans."

"Oh, I am," rumbles Geralt, trying to infuse his voice with sultry promise and not feel ridiculous about it.

Going by the look in Jaskier's eyes, he succeeds.

He rubs his cheek over the hair on Jaskier's chest, nuzzles the trail down his soft stomach, nips lazily at the flesh; Jaskier half-hisses and half-laughs, because they're sharp, Geralt's eye-teeth; he bends the knee further, bringing the thigh up, so Geralt kisses that too, licks the thin, sensitive skin. He takes Jaskier's cock in his mouth, going slow until he's all the way down, and Jaskier arches back in the sand and sings.

Geralt sucks, hums around the thickness filling his mouth, rubs his thumbs over Jaskier's hipbones to soothe him where he presses him gently into the sand. He can tell the moment when Jaskier catches on a current of pleasure and surrenders to it, fingers slipping into Geralt's hair, legs falling open, feet burying in the sand.

So Geralt keeps him there, but only for a carefully calculated moment.

He pulls off and crawls clumsily up Jaskier's body, pressing kisses wherever he pleases. Jaskier lifts his head, drugged out with pleasure yet strung tight where he was left approaching its edge, fingers pulling at Geralt's hair.

"Oh, you terrible bastard," he groans, but there's an entire ocean shining in his eyes.

Geralt rumbles, pleased with himself, his medallion dragging over Jaskier's chest.

"We're not done," he says, licking at the corner of Jaskier's mouth.

A tidal wave laps closer, spilling diamonds in the sun.

"Geralt..." says Jaskier, eyeing the wetness of newly devoured sand, now closer to their blanket.

"No," Geralt tells him with immense certainty, but to be honest, a flash flood could come right now and he still would stay put, between Jaskier's thighs and with their hard cocks pressed between their bellies.

He rolls his hips to emphasise that point, and licks a hot stripe up Jaskier's throat when his head tilts back on another moan.

It takes a while like this, and that's exactly what Geralt wants. He rests on his elbows, bracketing Jaskier's head between his arms, their bellies pressed close together and slick with sweat and precome. The chase is long, the pleasure coy and making them work for it; there are a few grains of sand caught between them, far enough from their cocks to be safe, yet coarse and close enough to offer an extra edge.

Jaskier palms Geralt's arse, squeezes the flesh, urges him on as they both move, rubbing together. Eventually, skilled fingers dip into his cleft, and Geralt grunts a warning.

"If you get sand in my arse..."

Jaskier laughs into the scant, hot air between them, each breath tinged with a moan.

"You'll what? Oh, you'll _what_ , you big bad wolf?"

Geralt growls and bites his neck, licks the sore spot, and bites again. Jaskier's voice lilts between laughter and moan, and Geralt smiles into his skin.

The sea glitters and shines beside them.

* * *

**_5\. Names_ **

Names have power.

Every monarch and artist and pirate knows it, every child is taught not to give theirs away to a stranger. Names grow and hold and command attention, strike fear and increase power. As to faes, they value names more than treasure, stealing and hoarding them and using them to spin fates and destinies to their design. When a fae learns a person's name, they can gain control over their life.

Jaskier has no such magical powers, yet the thrum of fae blood within him pushes him in similar directions. But it's Jaskier's heart, his human, _human_ heart that decides what he does with a name.

Barely eighteen, a droplet in the ocean of a fae's lifespan, he named himself and set out into the world with no claims or ties to bind him. He chose his own name. Severed any power anyone could have held over him. He travelled the Continent, met and left his muses, made his own Path in the world.

And then he met Geralt. He did not like the name of the Butcher of Blaviken that the world had given him, and so he crushed it under his thumb like a bug, unknowing yet of his own power. He forged Geralt a new name, anointed him with song, and made the entire Continent speak his name.

Jaskier may not have any magic, but the world still bends to its own laws. Jaskier is part-fae, and Jaskier has named him, so it sings in Geralt's blood and reverberates in the marrow of his bones.

Or perhaps it's just that Geralt loves him.

"Geralt!" Jaskier exclaims when he bears news.

"Geralt," Jaskier murmurs conspiratorially as he leans closer in a crowded tavern.

"Geralt!" Jaskier squawks as he trips into a swamp.

"Geralt," Jaskier hums, happy and loose with good wine and on the verge of idle nonsense as they rest after a contract or bed down for a night under the stars.

But Geralt's name lingers on Jaskier as well, joins them together in return. Jaskier's name has sparked the Continent into fervour, but Jaskier the Bard is also called the White Wolf's Bard, the Witcher's Bard.

Jaskier tells him Geralt's name feels like quicksilver on his skin. Geralt points out that's poisonous, and Jaskier rolls his eyes and pulls him into a kiss. Geralt wisely shuts up.

Even with potions oozing through his veins and screeching in his brain, Geralt steers towards something the way birds unfailingly head north. Through a noxious cloud of confusion, he knows something warm and good waits for him on the other end, and he pushes through it towards _Jaskier_.

Other times, when the potions have worn off, his trek back to Jaskier is peaceful, soothing away the aches of battle. Still a while away, Geralt can see the village, and if he focuses hard enough, he can make out Jaskier perched on its fence, swinging his legs and watching the horizon.

"Geralt!" Jaskier calls out, sighting him on the path, and runs.

Geralt's feet carry him a few more steps on the dusty road, and then he stops, lets the harpy head fall to the ground, and he watches the colourful silhouette come closer and closer, dust billowing in Jaskier's wake. The sun lights the afternoon of a day perched on summer's end, and Jaskier's hair blazes warm, his smile all Geralt can see, and Geralt opens his arms and stands there and _waits_.

Jaskier slams into him, grips him in his arms, and Geralt closes his eyes and slots into place.

Witchers are capable of some magic, but nothing of any meaningful kind. There are no magical ways that mark them as each other's, and Geralt is very happy with that. And he does have his own ways – neither witcher nor human, but simply Geralt – to claim Jaskier as _his_ in return.

And Jaskier seems to like them all just fine.

Geralt kisses him, fucks him, whispers to him, loves him. He tells Jaskier things he doesn't tell anyone else; he holds him by the river just for the sake of a simple kiss; he tucks buttercups in his hair; he pretends to complain when Jaskier sneaks Roach too many sugar lumps and apples; he puts a book in Jaskier's hands and lays his head on Jaskier's chest while he reads in a quiet voice as their campfire's sparks race to reach the sky.

In Kaer Morhen, where the stone walls keep the world at bay and where everyone in sight is a friend, he makes a ring for Jaskier to wear.

It's not a marriage band, but it may as well be. They're married in all the ways that matter, and Jaskier whispers as much into Geralt's lips that night, when he sits in Geralt's lap and rides him, slow and with loud, deep breaths while Geralt cradles the small of his back for support. The ring sits on Jaskier's finger when he grips Geralt's hair, when he runs his hands over Geralt's body, when he clings onto him as he comes.

Geralt lays him down on the bed, thrusting at the same slow, drawn-out pace that Jaskier had set, and Jaskier keens, reaching out with his ringed hand. Geralt takes it and allows him to lace their fingers together.

Jaskier looks him in the eye, squeezes his hand, drapes a leg over Geralt's hips. There's no magic in him, but Geralt still trembles when Jaskier's look turns commanding and he says:

"Geralt."

The ring digs into Geralt's own finger, the name tugs through his bones, and he comes.

Jaskier enjoys saying his name. Or perhaps he just does it. And he does it a lot, using it as a preamble to launch into whatever latest thought or personal outrage or hare-brained scheme he wants to unload on Geralt.

"Geralt!" he announces, bursting into the clearing where they've made camp, hair still wet from a quick bath in the stream, and proceeds to tell him about a treasure map he once saw with a landmark wonderfully reminiscent of the oddly shaped boulder near the stream.

The day ends with Geralt up to his elbows in soil and grime and with nothing to show for it, but Jaskier, twice as dirty and a thousand times more beautiful than he has the fucking right to be, is panting and cheerful, laughing as he rewards Geralt with kisses for the effort.

The day also ends with Geralt winning the wager about the absence of any treasure, so he has a week of foot rubs to look forward to.

Geralt stirs in the early hours when Jaskier shifts in the bed; he can hear the tell-tale scratching of quill on paper, and he knows Jaskier is writing down something he's just thought; he also knows the innkeeper will charge them for new sheets if he blots any ink on them. In a whimsical, possessive moment caught between waking and sleep, Geralt thinks he'd gladly fucking buy them and it would be the best bargain, because they smell like Jaskier, so he wants to wake up with his nose in these sheets forever.

(It's very early; he's allowed to think such thoughts.)

Jaskier puts away the writing and shifts and wriggles about enough to wake the whole inn with the rustling of the sheets and the creaking of the bed. Geralt is so fucking in love he almost chokes on it.

Finally, Jaskier seems to find a position that's comfortable, and there's peace and quiet; Geralt can hear his heartbeat, feel the warmth of his flesh, smell his hair. And there it is, blooming slowly in the air between them like a flower – Jaskier knows he's awake and he's about to speak, in that soft tone between voice and whisper, while their world is still as small as the bed they share.

There, almost there. Geralt can feel it like sunrise on his face, and he turns to it, lets it warm him.

"Geralt..."

**Author's Note:**

> I know this fic isn't spooky, but Happy Halloween, friends <3
> 
> This fic is a sort of sequel to [Making sense of things](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25752199), but they each work as a standalone, so I didn't want to lump them together into a series.
> 
> I remain thoroughly ruined by these beautiful idiots and their love. Comments make me light up like a happy lighthouse <3


End file.
